Things About Sickness

I think I have cabin fever. Maybe I have kid fever. Maybe I just have a fever. Either way I am sick. Definitely sick of my "cabin". And several other things that make up the majority of my life. Like small children who stick their fingers in their underpants and then smell them and announce their displeasure therewith. WHY? My friends at work (school, that is) and I debate about which is the lesser of the 3 evils: Elementary, Middle or High School. Give me high school EVERY DAY. At least by then when the kids are (we won't debate if) sticking their hands in their pants they have arrived at the understanding that is socially unacceptable to demonstrate, smell and denounce publicly. Usually. I won't say we don't have some exceptions...

Relying on work as a substitute at the school comes with the knowledge that I am not at liberty to turn down shifts that are offered to me. A) there might not be any other work that month and B) the office might decide you're not reliable, never call you again, and you end up homeless on the street. With as disgusted as I am with my house right now, the second problem seems slightly less disconcerting than usual, except that we got snow up on the mountain yesterday. The mountain right outside my window.  So when they call, I go. Even when there is the distinct possibility that I might have the same stomach virus that kept Aspen puking the day before yesterday, and/or the same one that induced vomiting during the prom on Saturday night by a student on my bus, of course. He wasn't smelling his own puke at least. But he did take half of the high school boys outside to see it, because who doesn't want to test out newly acquired forensic skills by taking bets on what this kid's last meal was. Technicolor yawns never get old, y'all. Lucky for me, or not, I never vomit. Hardly ever. In fact, the only times I remember (<----key word) puking in recent history were emotionally induced. Like that one time that my husband left for reals. Or certain revelations about the activities of teenage daughters. But I win the fight with most viruses and rarely succumb to an intimate encounter with the porcelain throne. Which is good, since that sucker hasn't been cleaned in at least three eons (until today). No puking, so clearly I am fine to work. Even if my back feels like Chuck Norris tap danced across my lower lumbar and reduced all of my vertebrae to crumbs. I am fine to work. Of course. I would love to watch children rediscover the scent of their own butt crack all day. It's my favorite.

So I am sick. The only medicine that seems to be helping is a steady stream of 80s rock alternated with marathons of Criminal Minds. Because watching serial killers murder children makes poop fingers seem bearable - almost. My sanity revolves around the knowledge that I can and will escape the cabin and the poop fingers at some point this week to surface momentarily in the quasi-adult world of meetings, interviews, writing, and most importantly, beer. Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day, which means I don't have to come home until all of the green beer is gone. From everywhere.

Hopefully that will make up for the toilet that I just was forced to clean. My favorite child, Noone, presumably with an upset stomach, decimated it. I had just finished reading a great story about a plane that had just taken off from London and was forced to turn around and re-land due to a "liquid fecal excrement" event in the lavatory that was apparently overtaking the entire flight. I feel your pain, airplane people. I want desperately to get off of my poop-laden flight, but there are no maintenance people to call in, and no free hotel nights while they take care of business. I am captain, concierge and liquid fecal excrement scrubber of this voyage to insanity. And supervisory poop finger washer. I wear many hats, y'all.

I am kind of sick of it.

Things About Being Sick

I felt it creeping up on me last night. I will admit that there have been girl's nights before that involved smoking a cigarette or two, Cloves of course, in the pinnacle of my poor intake decisions of the evening. Last night I didn't take a single puff, but my voice started waning and there was this burning sensation in the back of my throat that was ominous... and then a cough. A sneaky little cough, like it thought no one would notice. By midnight, when everybody straggled reluctantly home to kids that were probably asleep in their dirty play clothes without brushed teeth and after a dinner of macaroni and hot dogs, if they got dinner at all, I was left alone with a small furnace smoldering about half way down my throat and up into the back of my nasal passages. I took Nyquil, to be sure that I wouldn't feel a thing while I slept. I didn't, until I was awakened at 8:30 AM by a small black dog jumping with all four paws onto my sore left boob. That was enough feeling to make up for the peaceful night. I tried to get my eyes opened when Josh responded to my hoarse cry of pain, but I think I only got my mouth open a little and the fumes from my Nyquil breath soldered my eyelids shut, and drove Josh back out of the room. Apparently he had already been for a run and showered and chased kids off to school and that's what Emmy was coming to tell me. I wanted to crawl back under my blankets and die, but a full bladder and some other compelling feminine issues required that I get up and shower Exactly At That Moment. Hot water seemed like a good idea anyway, or it did until it ran out about 4 minutes into my shower. Did I mention that it was nice and chilly this morning? To be honest I don't really remember how I got from cold shower to sweatpants to couch, procuring my electric germ blanket for it's annual inaugural run along the way. There's a chance I might be delirious, I am not sure, but I did find coffee, which MacKenzie had already made, mercifully.

I had only been sitting on the couch for 7 minutes, trying to read the 11 texts and 14 Facebook notifications that had bombarded my phone while I slept, when Josh shoved a 5 inch thick text book with TINY print and asked me to drill him on ALS drugs. Seriously? Does he not smell the residual Nyquil on my breath? And that is AFTER I brushed my teeth!! Mom wants me to pick flight times for a trip to Seattle in October, and I am supposed to choose a bank in Colville that isn't the (only) credit union because one of the tellers made Josh mad by telling him their policy on check cashing. He says policies don't make friends in the business world. I told him that was an interesting concept and he should totally understand why the kids don't like him, given that it is also true in the home/relationships world. I also had to schedule a doctors appointment, remember how to turn on the germ blanket, call the state insurance line to hear, in a very nice voice, about a 51 minute wait time, and decide what Aspen's favorite color is. These are all very complex things for a semi-early morning with no breakfast, a bad cold, moderate -to-severe anemia, and did I already mention the temperature drop this morning?

If someone would fix me up a big, steamy plate of corned beef hash with a couple of over-easy eggs and some sourdough toast, all would be well in the world. I shouted my order to the universe but all I got were some weird stares from the dogs, who are very excited that the germ blanket is up and running again. Did I mention how cold it is this morning? I think Truck is mildly hypothermic (well he's sleeping a lot...)  because Josh picked up all of the blankets, and my coffee has a layer of ice over it already. Rude.  This day is destined for the greatness of couch time, Pinterest, and wishing for food that will not be delivered to my living room, despite the earnestness of my desire.

Things That AREN'T New

It started off as a good day. I had won almost limitless Good Mom points for the surprise 13th birthday party I threw yesterday for Natalee that was a raging success, and even the mountain of Bad Mom strikes I got for the guilt trips about never throwing an Awesome Party for my other kids couldn't cancel out the radness of a cross town, retail scavenger hunt, complete with mochas and holiday socks and mini shopping spree at Claire's. Today, even as I tripped over sleeping bags and unidentifiable teenage bodies, and I rushed through apparently twice as much french toast as a herd of 13 year old girls would eat (did I miss an eating disorder memo here?), and didn't get to wash my hair before work because Halle had to get dropped off for ski practice, I was still humming merrily though my nearly debilitating pain about What a Good Job we had done surprising her and how maybe I could win my parenting merit badge someday after all.

It seems like whenever I leave for work, all hell breaks loose. Suddenly there is an influx of woeful texts about crabby children and minor household catastrophes and how Aspen won't get off Pottermoore so Halle can do her homework, which apparently consists of three hours of Facebook and an intense round of some role playing game I have never heard of. I would like to interject here, that on the day in question, which is today, incidentally, that the girls were not parentless. Josh was home pretty much all day, doing countless loads of laundry that involved racing the girls to the washing machine between loads, and cooking pinto beans according to my recipe WITHOUT burning them. He's pretty much a stud.

I think the Bad Things that were happening at home today were magnified by many things, such as two weeks spent at DAD's house, which is nothing more than a sugar fueled, sleepless duration of as much awkward and random socialization as can be forced on 4 kids in a Christmas Break. Send four girls to spend time with a) disconnected and troubled biological father, b) super-enabling and guilt driven grandmother and c) a mini cultish place full of weirdos and a few innocent bystanders, and you get four confused, exhausted and basically snotty kids with misdirected sympathies and misplaced moral standards.

The aura of peace and tranquil positivity was also dampened by a series of flu bugs that would put Kevin Bacon to shame with their interconnectivity. Who needs seven degrees when I can trace this (the second) virus (without insinuating origin) from Bend, to Marble, to Olympia, to Spokane, and by now to Nashville, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. It's one thing to share friendly holiday germs with family. You kind of come to expect that when somebody ALWAYS has a snot nosed kid or husband running around. But the holiday cheer of passing the flu onto random passerbyers and realizing that YOU helped start the epidemic that is ravaging Maryland is somehow deeply satisfying. I have made an impact CONTINENTALLY! I have boosted the economy in sales of Kleenex and NyQuil, and connected millions of strangers to each other WAY more efficiently and intimately, biologically even, than Kevin bacon ever did!

Another exacerbating factor to consider for the entropy we were facing at home is the fact that it is January. With the exception of January 1st, the entire month of January is bleak, cold and desolate. We are broke from Holiday Overdoing-it, the bills are three times their normal amount because "Halle" left the space heater on the whole time we were gone, and work is slim. After the glorious rush of New Years optimism and joyfulness, we are faced with the hard truth that another year has begun and we have to do it all.over.again. Like right now. Turns out, you still have to take the garbage out on Thursdays in 2013 or you'll have overflowing cans for another week. Turns out that the puppy poop on the back porch and the mountain of laundry didn't suddenly vanish at midnight 12/31/12. Oh yeah, and the car is still running rough, and somebody STILL needs to go to the dentist, and you guessed it, I am still in pain. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I just wanted to come home from my grueling (4 hour) work day and curl up in sweatpants. All of the elements were right. Josh made amazing fajitas. I found a (mostly) clean pair of sweatpants. I almost made it to the couch. But WHAM!!! chore time hit with a fury unlike anything that a scorned woman has ever seen. I am not even sure what happened, but by the time the dust settled, Kizzie was doing Halle's chore, Halle was doing Aspen's chore, and Aspen was innocently MIA with her unfinished plate of onions. Josh started helping do Aspen's chore then disappeared downstairs to pout over a basket of laundry, and Nattie somehow squeaked by, messing around on the computer the entire time, until Halle finished cleaning the kitchen halfway and tried to remove her physically from Facebook, which, as we all know, is a scientific impossibility. All of this transpired with quite a bit of yelling, huffing and puffing, whining, stomping, a few tears and ultimately, me losing all my glorious good mom points when I unplugged the girls computer from everything and carried off the hard drive. Josh got mad at me for getting mad at him for getting mad at the kids for getting mad at him and after I got mad at him for getting mad at me for all of that I got mad at the kids, just for the heck of it and he started acting much nicer because I was REALLY mad. He even offered me wine. But I am not drinking. For a minute.

Now I am in my sweatpants on the couch, waiting for some wine, Kizzie is playing nicely with the dogs, which should give you some indication of how serious the situation was, since Kizzie won't play with dogs unless her life depends on it. Josh is wearing his itchy Pendleton shirt just to make me happy and Halle went to bed with a headache. Aspen and Natalee are still trying to figure out how to make the computer work without a hard drive.

I am going to watch a movie. I am on the fence between a gangster flick with fedoras and a lot of shooting or a mushy tear jerker. Hmmm. PMS much?